Short-term memory and working memory are two distinct
concepts that have been measured in simple and complex
span tasks respectively. A new span task was designed to
manipulate a chunking factor while using a procedure similar
to simple span tasks. This span task allowed studying the
interaction between storage and processing in working
memory, when processing is fully dedicated to optimizing
storage. The main hypothesis was that the storage √ó
processing interaction that can be induced by the chunking
factor is an excellent indicator of intelligence because both
working memory and intelligence depend on optimizing
storage. Two experiments used an adaptation of the SIMON®
game in which chunking opportunities were estimated using
an algorithmic complexity metric. The results show that the
metric can be used to predict memory performance and that
intelligence is well predicted by the new chunking span task
in comparison to other simple and complex span tasks